Canning Joy

Greg and I are having a ton of fun canning things! Exactly two weeks ago today we started our first batch of dilly beans, so they are ready for eating now. We haven't opened a jar yet. I am tempted to let them sit a little longer, but I'm not sure that will actually improve them. We have also made blackberry jam with free blackberries from Harjit's yard. And spiced blueberry jam with some blueberries we picked at this great secret blueberry farm I know of. And lastly we canned pie filling! This one I am particularly excited about. We have two blackberries (more of Harjit's blackberries) and one blueberry (from the Super Acres pick-your-own place in Lyme). yummmmmm

Garden Log

This post is mostly for my own purposes of remembering how our vegetables did as well as when and how much we harvested throughout the growing season. I hope to keep it updated and also possibly add photos if appropriate.

July 7: 6 green beans
July 14: 5 green beans
July 24: 4 green beans, 1 cucumber

July 27: 6 green beans
August 4: 2 cucumbers, 10 green beans, 11 green beans (barn), 1 pea
August 5: 8 green beans
August 8: 5 green beans
August 11: 8 green beans, 5 peas
August 12: 2 cucumbers, 14 green beans (plants at Greg's have been demolished by deer, should have had Much more)

Old Notes

I am sitting in the airport, not really wanting to read, and also having zero access to free internet, so I am doing some blog-writing, that will hopefully get posted shortly after being written.

On the topic of my hair:

I settled into a no-shampoo routine. About 1 or 2 or 3 times per week I would shower and do a salt water rinse on my hair, followed by an apple cider vinegar rinse. Most days I felt "meh" about my hair. Some rare days I felt like I really liked my hair. Some days I also thought my hair looked terrible. I don't want to go back to using shampoo because I really don't think it can be good for me. I have now tried using a baking soda and water solution to "wash" my hair. I think it worked fairly well, when followed by the acv rinse. I also spent a week in Aspen attending a conference with my friend Allison, who originally got me interested in avoiding shampoo, and she suggested trying a dry shampoo, as a fast alternative to doing the shower routine with my hair, if I woke up one day hating how my hair looked. I think she said corn starch works as a good dry shampoo, just shake a little on top of my head, and brush out. I need to look that up though, to make sure it was actually corn starch, and not some other powder substance.

All in all, I feel like my hair cleaning is super low-maintenance, which is my favorite part. I am also so amazed that I was able to curl my hair and have it keep the curl without using any bit of hair spray.

On the topic of travel:

Over Memorial Day weekend, Malory came to visit me in VT. We had a lot of big plans to do a lot of fun things. She scheduled her trip around the Vermont City Marathon in Burlington, which she ran like a champ. Greg and I took on the important role of "support team", which included making giant neon signs with puffy things saying important things like "You Rock Snakebite" and "Don't Trip" with a picture of a jaguar crossing the finish line. OH and one funny but terrible thing that happened at the marathon: one of the wheelchair racers fell into Lake Champlain! For those unfamiliar, the wheelchair racers ride these super fast tricycle-like things. Well at the end of the race there was a 90 degree turn, right on the edge by the water. I am pretty sure that is where he went in, because I don't know how any bikes going a decent speed could make it around that corner. Another interesting fact: the winner of the foot race beat some of the wheelchair racers, who had started 5 or 10 minutes before the foot racers. THAT is crazy!

Aside from that, pretty much everything we wanted to do on that trip went wrong. We spent one day visiting Montpelier, where we had a terribly disgusting dessert eclair, followed by a visit to the Trapp Family Lodge, where nothing was really going on and they didn't have a tandem bike we could rent, followed by a visit to the Ben & Jerry's factory, where they gave us a tour, but they weren't actually making ice cream, because the workers had a long weekend. Another day we wanted to go to Afternoon Tea in Chester, VT at a little B&B. We got to the door, but it was locked, so we knocked/rang, and about 4 minutes later a woman comes to the door and says, "Oh I'm sorry I'm closed today." Malory and I stood there for a minute, not sure what was going on, especially since I had called two days prior and made a reservation and had actually talked to this woman twice. So we were kind of like "oookay" and started to back away, and then the woman started talking. Apparently she was up all night with her dog who had eaten an entire bottle of ibuprofen (which is highly poisonous for dogs, she informed us, not to mention poisonous to any living creature when eaten in doses as large as a full bottle). Therefore, she was closed. Again, "oookay" and start to back away, and the woman starts talking more. "Did you have a reservation?" "yeeeah we came for afternoon tea?" "ooh... OOh (this is when she realized she totally forgot about us)... OH I am SO sorry. Now I even remember talking to you on the phone" and on and on. We stood on that porch for a lot longer than I felt comfortable with, but the fact of the matter was that no food was prepared and therefore we were not having tea. The woman actually did call me later and left a message on my phone. She was practically crying into the phone, so I'm not Positive about what she said, but I think, sandwiched by apologies, she offered us free tea. Unfortunately (fortunately?) Chester was far enough away to make me feel like it was not worth another awkward experience with this lady.

The one other thing that I remember going wrong was that it rained on the day we were planning to go canoeing. By that point the disappointment was not so great, because we weren't really expecting our plans to actually work out.

Malory did bring me a giant spoon, so that was great!

Flying Notes

Flying from Manchester to Chicago is definitely one of my favorite trips. We were flying at maybe 10,000 feet, and the sky was totally clear, so I could easily see everything. I actually slept through NH and VT. I woke up when we were over NY, as recognized by Lake Ontario to the north. I actually had to spend some time thinking about the Great Lakes, because I kind of forgot what they all were.

Plus I wasn't sure if I was over NY and seeing Lake Ontario or if I was over Ohio and seeing Lake Eerie. Luckily the Finger Lakes were easily discernible, so I got that all straightened out. I watched out the window as we made our way to Ohio. The neatest thing I spotted was a bunch of wind turbines! At first I couldn't quite figure it out, but then I realized that must have been what it was. A giant patch of them in NY, west of the Finger Lakes, south of Lake Ontario, southeast of Lake Eerie, just hanging out and being awesome. I could even see the actual spinning on the ones that I was looking straight on. It does take a long time to fly along the Great Lakes though, so I also did some reading of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and also got a snack to eat. On Southwest they give out 100 calorie packs.



100 calorie packs are about my least favorite invention ever.

It was an especially odd food to be eating considering the book I am currently reading. Also, on the front of the package it has this special little blurb:
Snacktime Inspirations: Remember, frozen fruits and vegetables are just as nutritious as fresh - so stock up the freezer and incorporate them into a variety of different recipes.

First of all, according to my text editor, snacktime is not a word.

Second of all, what is the message here? Having fruits and vegetables in the house encourages you to eat more? And you don't have to worry about them spoiling if you don't eat them, because they are in the freezer?

Most importantly, why does my 100 calorie pack of tiny cinnamon roll shaped graham crackers care if I am eating fruits and vegetables? Kraft Inc. I shake my fist at you.

I'm not really intending to become a total food snob, because I know I could never make it as a locavore, but honestly, some things are going too far.

Anyhow, back to my adventure. I stayed awake until we got to Michigan, where you can see Canada sneaking in to the south of Detroit. I really like maps a lot, and I also really like when I can be far enough away from land to pick out features I can recognize from seeing a map. Mapmakers, I salute you. Also, sidenote, what exactly do surveyors do? I feel like this is an important and neat job, but when I see two guys surveying Main Street in Hanover, are they really doing something that hasn't been done before? This I cannot believe to be true, but I really have no clue about surveyors. I should do some wikipedia reading. Anyhow, then I slept through Michigan, and woke up to see we were quite close to landing, and had a nice morning view of the Chicago skyline. Good trip everyone! Thanks!

Sadly, Midway has no free wireless, so I am not posting this immediately upon typing, but at least I am back to blogging!

Giant Marshmallows

Look what I got at the grocery store the other day.

Stuff Sucks

Thank you toothpastefordinner.com for that.

I rode my bike to school today.
An oil truck came within a foot of me, going at least 10mph over the speed limit of 30.
The gust of wind/My overwhelming fear made me start going all wobbly on my bike.
Maybe this is my fault for not being that good of a bike rider. Maybe it is my fault for loading my crate on the back too full instead of evenly distributing the weight of the stuff I was hauling.
Either way, I was at least going slowly enough to be able to stop instead of fall over.
And I almost cried.

Hair Update

I am a day shy of five weeks with no shampoo. All in all I feel very positive about this. There are days when I think my hair looks not-great, but it hasn't been bad enough to force me to do any shampooing. In fact, even if I decide something more needs to be done, I have a lot of options I can try, and I'm pretty sure shampoo will never be one of them.



Here is a low-quality photo I took on my computer just now. You can see my awesome display case with rulers in the background. This is what my hair looks like on a Tuesday morning after not having showered since Sunday afternoon. For the past two weeks I've only been cleaning my hair twice a week. I think that is probably stretching it a bit more than I ought to, but I really want to test the limits here. I had been rinsing my hair with just water on occasion though, for example, if I needed to shower off after going running, but it wasn't quite time for an acv cleansing routine. I think the days when I did just a water rinse were making my hair look more greasy though, so I don't want to do that anymore. So we'll see if I make it to thursday this week before I want to clean my hair again.

This weekend I have a wedding to attend, and I was thinking I might try to curl my hair a bit. This is a big feat people. I have tried this before, and because I don't put hair spray in my hair the curl is gone pretty much instantly. Last night I did a sample curl just to see what it would look like, and how it would stay. Hair that has not seen shampoo in weeks holds curl in the most amazing way!! I didn't even let the curling iron get hot, and I could get curls to stay. My real concern is what will happen if I go swimming in a hotel pool filled with chlorine...